ALA Elects Three New Board of Directors – Congratulations to Dave Dorsett, Symyx Technologies, Erik Rubin, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and Steven Vidakovic, Pfizer as the three newest members of the nine-person ALA Board of Directors as elected by the association constituency. A special note of thanks to Anne Kopf-Sill, CellPoint Diagnostics; James Myslik, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; and Stephen Jacobson, Indiana University, as their three-year terms serving on the Board come to a close this January.

Best-of-the-Best Set for $10,000 ALA Innovation Award Competition– Recognizing seminal research and development in the laboratory, an esteemed ALA panel of judges recently announced nine candidates vying for the $10,000 Innovation Award next month at LabAutomation2007.  You won't want to miss these podium presentations.

Eight Start-Up Companies Selected for Innovation AveNEW – Featuring new companies from Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States – Innovation AveNEW is the world-wide coming-out party for eight start-up companies in the field of laboratory automation and the life sciences.

Academic Travel Awards Granted to 27 Students – Be sure to visit the LabAutomation2007 Posters in the exhibit hall as these 27 top students compete in our traditional Student Poster Competition offering cash rewards to the top three winners. These students, coming from as far away as China, Finland and Helsinki, have been awarded travel grants and lodging during the conference.

JALA Receives Bronze Medal in Association TRENDS Media Competition – As part of the TRENDS Salute to Excellence "Best-of-the-Best" in Association Communications Ceremony, February 2, 2007, Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C., ALA's Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation (JALA) will be awarded the Bronze Medal for the Scholarly Scientific Journal Category.

Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Joins ALA Friends Program – ALA and the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) recently joined forces in a reciprocal agreement furthering each organization's educational mission.  Watch for more information regarding selected short courses at each association's respective annual conference.

Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry Leads Plenary for LabAutomation2008 – LabAutomation2008 Scientific Committee Chair Eric Rubin, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, recently announced that the 2001 Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry, K. Barry Sharpless, The Scripps Research Institute, will lead-off the plenary line-up of renowned speakers. Watch the ALA web site for more developing news on LabAutomation2008

Double-Digit Growth Predicted for ELN Market
LIMSource.com (12/04/06)

Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) have the potential to help transform the laboratory experience for scientists. With the technology, scientists can integrate data and information in a way that will allow them to work in "virtual teams" as they share their knowledge and research. More than 30 vendors now see the potential of the market. The new Electronic Laboratory Notebook Survey from Atrium Research predicts the ELN market will grow by double-digits over the next four years. "Our study shows strong interest in the technology to eliminate a major barrier in the vision of the electronic laboratory," says Michael H. Elliott, CEO of Atrium. "As was the case with LIMS in the early 1980s, the life sciences are leading ELN adoption and deployment."
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Fresh-Cut Produce Sorter Has Gentle, Sanitary Design
Product News Network (12/01/06)

Key Technology's new Tegra sorters promise to make sorting fresh-cut products such as lettuce and spinach more sanitary, efficient, and cost-effective. The sorter improves product quality and achieves a removal accuracy of up to 100 percent by using tri-chromatic cameras that can see both the visible and infrared spectrums to identify foreign contaminants such as protein-based animal matter, cardboard, plastic and glass. After foreign materials are detected, a metal-mesh catenary C-Belt uses gravity and centrifugal force to accelerate, stabilize, and launch the product into the inspection zone, where the defects are removed with a series of closely spaced air jets. An infeed shaker uses vibrations to separate out foreign objects. The sorters are easy to use, result in an average yield loss of less than 0.5 percent, and offer gentle handling that reduces product damage and provides longer shelf lives. Additionally, the Tegra sorter increases sanitation by reducing scatter, guiding the product flow, and subjecting the product to clean-in-place systems. The sorter uses Key's G6 electro-optical platform and KeyWare Application software designed for fresh-cut processors, and is available in 60-inch wide and 30-inch wide platforms capable of processing a respective 8,000 pounds and 4,000 pounds of fresh-cut product an hour.
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EPA, UW Pursue Potential Dangers of Nanotechnology
Madison Capital Times (WI) (11/24/06) P. A1; Novak, Bill

The potential dangers of nanotechnology-based products have been pushed to the forefront by the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate nanosilver, or tiny particles of silver included in numerous products for its germ-fighting abilities. Nanosilver can be found in such products as food-storage containers, air fresheners, bandages, and shoe liners. Nanosilver products must now comply with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, as particles that escape into the water system may kill beneficial bacteria and aquatic life. Chemistry and genetics professor David Schwartz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says nanotechnology researchers are collaborating with the federal government to create metrics for nanotechnology testing. According to Schwartz, "The testing is being worked on in real time, so as soon as a scientist comes up with something (a new nanotechnology product), we think about how to evaluate it."
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration Reviews Automated Assays for Tango Automated Blood Bank Systems
Food & Drug Law Weekly (11/24/06) P. 14

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is presently reviewing new applications to be included by Biotest Diagnostics Corp. (BDC) in its TANGO Automated Blood Bank System. The expanded TANGO system features antibody identification, Rh phenotyping, K1 phenotyping, crossmatching, direct antiglobulin testing, and a weak D assay. First approved by the FDA in July 2005, blood donor centers, hospitals, and reference laboratories presently use TANGO for patient and donor ABO/Rh testing, donor ABO/Rh confirmation testing, and antibody screening. Candace Williams of BDC notes that TANGO is user-friendly and flexible, saving users both time and money.
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Responsible Nanotechnology
Chemical & Engineering News (11/20/06) Vol. 84, No. 47, P. 20; Morrissey, Susan

More than a dozen scientists led by Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies are highlighting the importance of researching the environmental, health, and safety risks of nanotechnology. They deem this to be an urgent matter because over 300 nanomaterial products are presently on the market. According to Maynard, "If the public loses confidence in the commitment of the government, business, and the science community to conduct sound and systematic research into possible risk, then the enormous potential of nanotechnology will be squandered." A paper written by these scientists says tools that determine how nanomaterials are affected by air and water, examine their toxicity, and gauge the impact of new nanomaterials and their life cycles need to be developed. The paper also highlights the need for a risk-focused strategic research plan. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Ranking Minority Member Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) believe these recommendations could be included in the federal budget for the 2008 fiscal year.
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NHGRI Funds Large-Scale Sequencing Centers
NIH News Release (11/20/2006)

Three large-scale genome sequencing centers selected and funded by the National Human Genome Research Institution (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will investigate the role of DNA in human diseases over the next four years. The centers' findings will be used for The Cancer Genome Atlas pilot project, which is a $100 million collaborative project between NHGRI and NIH's National Cancer Institute that aims to identify the genomic changes that occur in cancerous cells. Although the researchers will use existing technology, there is a focus on refining the sequencing processes and developing new technologies, and the centers will also launch training and education programs for minorities, who are underrepresented in genomic sciences. "This genetic information will provide the research community with a powerful tool for uncovering new therapeutic targets and developing better strategies for diagnosing, treating, and preventing cancer," said Mark S. Guyer, director of the Division of Extramural Research at NHGRI. The Broad Institute Sequencing platform at the Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University will receive $48 million, the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center at the Washington University School of Medicine will receive $41 million, and the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine will receive $27.6 million.
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NASA Interested in Self-Healing Robot
Financial Times (11/17/06) P. 2

A team of researchers led by Joshua Bongard at the University of Vermont and supported by NASA has developed a robot that can detect and recover from damage to its body for possible use on unmanned planetary missions, according to research published in the journal Science. The Starfish robot is aware of its body and movements through a constantly updated virtual version of itself on its internal computer, and, when damaged, the robot devises a way to compensate for the problem. "Robots on other planets must be able to continue their mission without human intervention in the event they are damaged and cannot communicate their problem back to earth," said Bongard.
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What Do Robots Dream Of?
Science (11/17/06) Vol. 314, No. 5802, P. 1093; Adami, Christoph

A testbed for self-awareness models could be supplied by robots capable of devising and updating internal models of their own physical structure, which yields more robust navigation of their environment and better autonomous injury recovery, according to Christoph Adami of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. He cites the work of J. Bongard et al., which seeks to prove that a robot's robustness in surroundings that may include damage to the machine can be improved, using a four-legged robot that builds an internal model of itself by first executing actions on a flat surface and recording responses. "The robot then computationally tests candidate self-models, by re-imagining the actions it just performed and comparing the behavior of the model with its memory of the results—that is, the robot tries to explain the observed relationship between sensory data and leg actuation by making assumptions about its own configuration," Adami notes. The robot plays a dynamic role in ascertaining its optimal self-model. Bongard and colleagues employed an algorithm that utilizes the important information theory tenet that maximum predictive power can be yielded from the minimization of entropy. Adami reasons that through the use of such algorithms, the robot could "dream up" strategies for successfully navigating its environment. "We ought to be able to record the changes in the robot's artificial brain as it establishes its beliefs and models about the world and itself, and from those infer not only its cognitive algorithms, but also witness the emergence of a personality," he writes. "Thus, perhaps the discipline of experimental robot psychology is not too far off in the future."
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The Chips Are Down
Nature (11/16/06) Vol. 444, P. 256; Wadman, Meredith

The companies Affymetrix and Illumina are duking it out for key market positions in the potentially lucrative market for gene chips, which is being bolstered by genetics projects such as the HapMap Project. The gene chip was invented at Affymetrix 17 years ago, but now the company finds itself locked in battle with the smaller Illumina, which was founded in 1998. Also known as microarrays, gene chips are wafers of plastic, glass, or silicon that can be mounted with microscopic DNA probes to enable biologists to study how and when genes express themselves. Affymetrix is far and away the leader in the gene-chip market for studying gene expression, a crowded market where Illumina is a minor player, but in the new market for high-density genotyping, the two companies are the only two in the market. High-density genotyping involves using microarrays to study DNA from thousands of samples from a variety of people, some with a disease and some without it, to identify huge numbers of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Scientists hope to find that there are patterns of SNP variation associated with common diseases and with patient response to drug treatments. The HapMap Project, which is the first to describe common human patterns of sequence variation, has enabled large numbers of such experiments to be undertaken. Affymetrix recently ran into problems when technical and manufacturing glitches forced it to replace many defective chips as scientists lost technical data. One important factor in the Affymetrix-Illumina competition will be the outcome of a court case in which Affymetrix is accusing Illumina of violating five of its patents.
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Cornell Robot Discovers Itself and Adapts to Injury When it Loses One of its Limb
Cornell News (11/16/06) Steele, Bill

A robot has been built by Cornell researchers that is able to learn how to walk by analyzing its parts, creating the ability to adapt to any changes it may encounter. Cornell assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Hod Lipson explains, "Most robots have a fixed model laboriously designed by human engineers. We showed for the first time, how the model can emerge within the robot. It makes robots adaptive at a new level, because they can be given a task without requiring a model. It opens the door to a new level of machine cognition." The robot is only given the knowledge of what it consists of and an objective. It begins by creating models of how these parts may be arranged and developing communications to send to its motors in order to test these parts; after choosing commands based on which model is best, it sends commands and analyzes its movements. This process is repeated 16 times before selecting a method of moving forward. After completing its first task of reaching a certain point, the researchers remove a leg, and the robot must go through the 16 cycles that will let it find the most effective means of continuing forward. The researchers consider the robot to have primitive consciousness, because of its ability to consider actions before executing them. They also believe that this project could provide insight as to the way humans use images of themselves and the imagined result of specific physical movements when learning to walk.
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Nanocoating
Triangle Business Journal (11/13/06) Horlbeck, Fred

University and private-sector researchers in North Carolina are touting a nanocoating product that, according to lab test results, kills 99.9 percent of influenza viruses—including the dreaded avian influenza virus—and 99.99 percent of the vaccinia virus. Research Triangle start-up firm LaamScience licensed the invention from North Carolina State University (NCSU), which is attempting to patent the technology. The nanocoating product is a coating that can be formed as a solid or applied as a liquid. In liquid form, the nanocoating can be applied to any type of material or fabric, and the coating is activated by light, setting off a chemical reaction with air that is lethal to most viral and bacterial microbes. Nanocoating "has the potential of altering world health" and is not harmful to humans or animals, claims NCSU researcher Stephen Michielsen. LaamScience says that the product could be applied to wallpaper, furniture fabric, carpets, paint, clothing, and air purifiers—especially in hospitals, retirement homes, and day-care centers.
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Cleaning Water With ‘Nanorust'
Chemical & Engineering News (11/13/06) Vol. 84, No. 46, P. 12; Halford, Bethany

Researchers at Rice University have used magnetite nanoparticles to remove arsenic from drinking water. The discovery came after chemistry professor Vicki L. Colvin and colleagues learned how to make magnetitenanoparticles in different sizes and keep them apart with a coating of oleic acid. "We were surprised to find that we didn't need large electromagnets to move our nanoparticles, and in some cases, handheld magnets could do the trick," says Colvin. According to physics professor Douglas Natelson, the nanoparticles were pulled out of the water by the handheld magnets as well as the forces that they exerted on each other. The researchers also studied the impact of the size of the surface area on remediation. They are now studying the use of magnetite nanoparticles in an engineered system, an idea that intrigues Troy J. Tranter, an arsenic remediation expert at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory. "Although the nanoparticles used in the publication are expensive, we are working on new approaches to their production that use rust and olive oil and require no more facilities than a kitchen with a gas cooktop," says Colvin.
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Intel Eyes Nanotubes for Future Chip Designs
CNet (11/10/06) Kanellos, Michael

Intel has successfully built interconnects using carbon nanotubes instead of copper wires, which could lead to a new generation of semiconductors. Although the interconnects are still merely prototypes, this advancement allow theories concerning the properties of carbon nanotubes used as interconnects to be tested. As Moore's law drives the size of transistors down, shrinking copper interconnects will have increased resistance, thus slower electron movement, due to "electrons carom[ing] off the metal atoms," according to Dave Lammers, a director with VLSI Research, a semiconductor analysis firm. Carbon nanotubes, however, display "ballistic conductivity," where electrons are free from obstruction and scattering. They are also much thinner than metal interconnects, at only a few billionths of a meter thick, which should make the job of chipmakers much easier for years to come. Currently, the problem with carbon nanotubes is that it is impossible to mass produce uniform nanotubes (some are conductors, some semiconductors; length also varies), so a way to achieve uniformity, or separate them into groups, is needed. Carbon nanotubes interconnects are still several years off from being used in commercial chips.
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Sensor Networks Protect Containers, Navigate Robots
Washington University (St. Louis) (11/09/06) Fitzpatrick, Tony

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have achieved a new level of flexibility in wireless sensor networks, which can support multiple applications over the same hardware to meet changing conditions. In an experiment, a sensor network that utilized software agents was able to locate a simulated fire and direct a robot to the location, using heat detection. After finding the fire, the software agent "clones" itself, forming a ring of software around the fire that a fire fighter can use to learn about the fire, and if the fire grows, another ring can be created. The research team created a middleware program called Agilla that allows agents to traverse sensor networks connected through the Internet, creating intricate communities of agents in cooperation. Gruia-Catalin Roman, Ph.D., the Harold B. and Adelaide G. Welge professor of Computer Science and department chair, and director of Washington University's Mobile Computing Laboratory, who contributed to the project, predicts that wireless sensor networks are ready to have a huge global impact, not unlike the rise of the Internet following the development of the World Wide Web. "What researchers are banking on is that sensor networks will be so cheap to make that they can be employed on a very large scale," says Roman. "This way you can spread hundreds and thousands of them around gathering data and communicating." Potential future applications include a farmer retrieving data concerning the various types of soil on his land, or a warehouse monitoring its containers.
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Seeing With Superconductors
Scientific American (11/06) Vol. 295, No. 5, P. 86; Irwin, Kent D.

Fields that range from antiterrorism to quantum communications security to astronomy could be dramatically affected by minuscule superconductors that can detect photons and other particles, substantially boosting the sensitivity of measurements across the electromagnetic spectrum. Superconducting photon sensors could help spot materials that could be used in a nuclear weapon, analyze defects in microchips, and gather images much more rapidly, for example. The new sensors come in two varieties: Thermal sensors that rely on how a photon's energy raises the temperature of the detector material, and pair-breaking detectors that sense how a photon disrupts some of the electron pairs that generate superconductivity. Practical imaging is executed by large detector arrays, but all the output signals emitted by the detectors must be blended into a smaller number of data lines via multiplexing. The key to superconducting materials' suitability as sensors lies in the fragility of superconductivity. Currently available superconducting detectors boast 10 to 100 times more sensitivity than conventional detectors functioning at room temperature, and these devices have applications in homeland defense and nuclear nonproliferation, submillimeter astronomy, and cosmology, to name a few areas.
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A Revolutionary Approach to Biomarker
Discovery Scientist (11/01/2006) Vol. 20, No. 1, P. 33; Petricoin, Emanuel F.; Liotta, Lance A.

Emanuel Petricoin and Lance Liotta of George Mason University's Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine report that blood-borne biomarkers and protein biomarkers that increase the specificity of sensitive imaging technologies to improve the early-stage disease diagnosis are presently in the works. Petricoin, Liotta, and other researchers are paying close attention to low-molecular-weight range serum proteomes, or peptidomes, in the blood that essentially record cellular and extracelluar enzymatic activities in diseased tissue. Researchers are looking at panels of peptidome markers as replacements for single, cancer-specific biomarkers and have discovered that fragments of markers are more sensitive and specific than whole molecules. However, Petricoin and Liotta say new technologies that measure the identity of the biomarker and the size of the fragment are necessary, and they believe immuno-mass spectrometry may be the answer. They do not think it is feasible to develop a peptidome-based screening test for the general population, believing it is most sensible to use it in conjunction with diagnostic imaging or when a mass has been found.
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Securing Life Sciences Research in an Age of Terrorism
Issues in Science and Technology (11/06) Vol. 23, No. 1, P. 41; Atlas, Ronald M.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. government has made it a priority to ensure that terrorists do not get their hands on dangerous toxins or pathogens. These efforts have raised concerns among scientists that homeland security efforts could ultimately impede the progress of scientific research. In order to fend off the possibility of even greater government oversight and regulations, the scientific community must work hard at self-governance. This means complying with existing regulations, participating in the process of implementing reasonable laws here in the United States, and nurturing self-governance efforts in other countries. Since the anthrax scare of late 2001, the U.S. government has increased its funding of biodefense programs. Though some scientists have criticized this funding, ultimately it should help advance the scientific community's efforts to improve world health. In the future, it will be necessary for researchers to help provide security for new forms of knowledge that could fall into the hands of terrorists who would use this knowledge against humanity.
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More Productive Processing of Western Blots
BioTechniques (11/06) Vol. 41, No. 5, P. 632

The new MN18 and MN26 Miniblotters from Immunetics will help increase productivity and decrease cross-channel contamination when processing Western blots by allowing researchers to incubate separate antibodies with antigens run in different gel lanes before being transferred to a membrane. The design creates discrete parallel channels for the immunoassay to run on the intact blotted membrane, which is mounted directly in the unit, that act as independent incubation chambers. The MN18 and MN26 Miniblotters have a respective 18 and 26 channels, and both hold anywhere from 100 to 340 mL.
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